Surrender a little or surrender nothing at all

In the Fall 2005 issue of The Claremont Review of Books, Mark Helprin contributed an opinion piece entitled “Herd Animals”. In it he attempted an explanation as to why most of the American left reacted differently to the events of 911 than did the right. Helprin is/was opposed to the Iraq War, and I believe he still his. But he said…

….as the immense plumes of smoke and dust still were rising in strength from the ruins of the World Trade Center, and not a single shot had been fired or single soldier sacrificed in what was to become the War on Terrorism, the worldwide Left mobilized instantaneously to assert that such a war - the particulars and extent of which it could not know - would be unjust….

…since then many opponents and proponents of the war, despite being not even decimally aware of pertinent facts of relations, have managed to enlarge their unexamined notions into either complex and disconnected conspiracy theories involving oil, or manic crusader-atavistic visions of remaking the Arab and Muslim worlds, and that the dust from these ignorant armies, as they debate with the finesse of English football hooligans, rises into a plume of its own.

But why the essential difference?

The nature of one’s reaction to aggression against one’s country will often be determined by whether one sees the polity primarily as individuals who must struggle with the imperfection of being bound into a collective, or as a collective that must overcome the circumstantial imperfection that it comprises individuals. For wildebeest thundering across a plain in Africa, it takes a village. The herd defends itself by sacrificing a minuscule proportion of its number and moving on. If the herd were to turn upon the jackals preying upon it, the jackals would be pulverized almost instantly. Nonetheless, if the price for the escape of ten thousand is the sacrifice of only a few, this is how it is done when the collective is paramount.

But animals like bears, tigers and lions, that wander individually or in small groups, know that their survival depends upon how they fight, and their willingness to fight is so well understood that they are seldom attacked, whereas to a predator a herd in flight is a living contradiction to the maxim that there is no FREE LUNCH…

Mankind is not a genetic set piece, divided into lone wolves and lemmings, but rather the division is a reflection of habituation to the collective - indeed, worship of it - as opposed to a habitual resistance to it. Capitulation and appeasement may sometimes be merely subcategories of a controlling impulse that produces both. When The Left bends to America’s enemies it may not be a result of cowardice or betrayal, but of loyalty to the omelette so single-minded that it precludes consideration of the eggs….

You know which one you are. Stop by THIS SITE if you need a reminder, and scroll to the bottom.

Archived in: 9/11, Liberalism, Moonbats, War on Terror